Overview

Sandra Blow (b. 1925) is one of the most important British artists of the last 50 years. During this time of rapid change in the art world, her commitment to abstract painting has resulted in a large and diverse body of work of distinctive power and subtlety. Despite her high reputation, little has previously been published about Blow. This is the first full-length study of her life and art. Lavishly illustrated throughout, it provides the first fully representative selection of works spanning all stages of her career. Michael Bird has worked in close collaboration with the artist and has drawn on a wealth of unpublished material. He explores the crucial importance of abstraction to Blow, and looks in depth at her relationship to other artists including Alberto Burri and Roger Hilton. He also places Blow's work in the context of British and international art movements of the post-war period and late twentieth century. Through close attention to Blow's studio practice, this book provides wide-ranging insights into her creative process. It reveals the intensity of emotional engagement and technical experimentation that lie behind the apparent spontaneity of her vivid handling of materials, colour and form.

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9780853319214

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Reviews

'A fascinating read for any Blow enthusiast.' Cornwall Today 'Bird's lavishly illustrated retrospective text, the first devoted to Blow, finally gives the artist and her large-scale, vividly hued, obdurately abstract work their due... Highly recommended.' Choice

Author Information

Michael Bird is an independent art historian and curator, and author of more than a dozen books, including The St Ives Artists: A Biography of Place and Time (2008, with a new edition published in 2016/2023), Matt Rugg: The Many Languages of Sculpture (2023), George Fullard: Sculpture and Survival (2017) and Studio Voices: Art and Life in 20th-Century Britain (2018) (all published by Lund Humphries). In 2016 he was National Life Stories Goodison Fellow and in 2018-21 Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Exeter. In 2022 he co-curated Living the Landscape: Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and the Artists of St Ives at the Museum Belvédère, Heerenveen.

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